Thursday, 30 June 2011

Here he his... hopping along in the sun (where is the sun anyway???). My little grasshopper (or you could call him a cricket if you were that way inclined).

Those of you who know my work know that I love, love, love red! I can't get enough of it and actually have to refrain from having EVERYTHING red!
I think this is a disease... and I know there are others out there with the same affliction!

In any case red does look good in the garden and looks great against the green and brown backgrounds. It adds colour and brightens up the garden even for those 'brown thumbs' out there.

So although he is not true to life, unless someone can tell me of a red grasshopper (???), he surely is handsome.

He stands approximately 50cm tall and 60cm long and is ready to bounce!

He is made from steel and paint with wire for his antennae and a couple of sparkling cork caps for eyes!

Sunday, 26 June 2011

A lot of people ask me "Where do you get your ideas from?". Nature is always my answer. There are so many gorgeous animals out there that I would love to make... if only there were more hours in the day.
I have a huge 'to do' list - its comprised of so many different animals I would like to portray in metal.

But how do I go from a thought to sculpture?
Well there is no exact science to it but I can give you an insight into the first 'process' that gets me started and in later posts I will take you trough the full journey.

Firstly if an animal takes my fancy I start out with research - looking at books, images, reading about the animals and, if possible, observing it in real life.
I then start to sketch. Now here's a thing... I am a sculptor not an illustrator! I don't sketch so that it looks good... I sketch to start getting a feel for the way I may design the sculpture. As I have been doing this, over time, my sketches are becoming less realistic and I am now almost missing a step and going straight to drawing the animal 'styalised' and moving towards a sculpture design.

I then continue to draw the design until I can factor in the limitations of my material (there are many!). I just keep going until I get a design I am happy with that I know will work in metal.
Sometimes it ends here... sometimes I have designed and never made, sometimes I have designed and come back to it months later to take it up again, sometimes I have designed and am making the very next day. That's why I describe what I do as 'how long is a piece of string'.

So that's my rainy, cold day work... designing, drawing and adding a little bit of luck and hope!

Here are a couple of examples of sculptures I have finished recently and how they were portrayed on paper before making their way to metal.

This little lion began with this sketch here and he pretty much ended up as he started out on paper.

This penguin was sketched over months before I came up with the eventual design. This sketch is the final sketch before I made the end sculpture pictured.

In the future I would like to continue the 'Where does it all begin?' journey and take you from sheet metal to a semi completed sculpture 'shape'.

In the meantime if you would like to see more my my work visit my website.

Thursday, 23 June 2011

Here he is... my sitting, eating Pelican!
I have always been amazed by Pelicans, that they are so large yet fly so gracefully. They also seem to have a cheeky personality and an intelligence which makes them stalk fishermen and 'hang out' at boat ramps.

There are many different types of Pelicans but this sculpture is based on the Australian Pelican with his colourings and markings.

He stands at approximately 65cm tall and is around the same in length.
He is made from steel... as per usual, all hand cut, hand shaped and hand rivetted.
He is also hand painted in enamel so will, as a real pelican would, stand outside in the weather for many years to come.